Another of Omanson's narrative poems, "The Discarded Stone," published in Small Farmer's Journal

 

        Though it is nearly impossible to place a longish narrative poem in a literary journal, not only due to considerations of space, but as well to a certain longstanding bias against narrative poems generally and long poems in particular-- that bias seems not to have carried over to the agricultural sector of our culture.  Or so we are led to conclude, given that two such poems by BJ Omanson, in the space of a single week, were accepted by two agricultural magazines.  

         Both poems are from his regionalist collection, Stark County Poems.  The first was "The Itinerant" which appeared in the Amish publication Farming Magazine, out of New Hope, Ohio, while the second,  "The Discarded Stone," appeared in Small Farmer's Journal, out of Sisters, Oregon.  Our thanks to both editors, David Kline & Lynn Miller, for taking in Omanson's two refugee poems, giving them some hot soup and putting a roof over their heads.

Excerpt:

       It shouldn’t have been there, but there it was,

a nineteenth-century gravestone partly

exposed at the edge of a rubbish pile

back in the woods.  He assumed some farmer

had finally had his fill of always

having to skirt an abandoned plot

of graves that no one had tended for years.

Perhaps he had struck a half-buried slab

with his cultivator and broken a tine

and, perhaps, after cursing and counting costs,

he had hauled away every stone on the site

and plowed it all under. And now, some years

or decades later, this exiled stone

had come to light in a wooded ravine

without a clue as to where it belonged.

He spent the afternoon digging it out,

using his big Shire mare and a rope

to dislodge and drag it up to the road.

With a neighbor’s help he stood it on end

and hoisted it up on the wagonbed

       where, once he had hauled it back to the farm,

       he spent a good hour scrubbing it clean,

       or as clean as he could make it, at least,

       which wasn’t very.  After so long

       in the ground, white marble is less than white

       and no amount of hard scrubbing with soap

       and a stiff-bristled brush will bring it back,

       but he did his best.  The head of the stone

       was another matter, with a scrolled edge

       and a single lily carved in relief—

       it was almost translucent where the sun

       had bleached it to whiteness over the years.

       Such graceful feminine lines bespoke

       a woman still in the bloom of her life,

       or perhaps a child.  Whatever her name,

       the autumn rains had erased it long since,

       as well as the dates, except for the year

       of 1811, which, given the stone’s

       Victorian style, he took to be

       the year of her birth.  And as to where

       the marker should go, he knew just the place:

       a fieldstone wall he had built years ago

to enclose the garden of his late wife

and protect it from any wandering sheep

or cattle that might have slipped through a gap

in the pasture fence.  Guiding his mare

by her bridle, he pulled the wagon in close

to the garden gate, then inclined the stone

slowly and carefully down, and leaned it

against the wall, just under the boughs

       of an old apple tree.  . . .  

Omanson's narrative poem, "The Itinerant" featured in Amish magazine

 

  One of BJ Omanson's narrative poems from his 2019 collection Stark County Poems, has been featured in a two-page spread in the Amish agrarian publication, Farming Magazine.  Although not a literary journal as such, the editor, author David Kline, considers poetry an important part of a fully-lived life and includes poems in every issue.  Among the poets appearing periodically in Farming Magazine are Wendell Berry and former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser.

Excerpt: 

.                                                    And, later, as they
stood framed in the doorway, their talking done
and he on his way to the barn, she told him,
"Wait here a little," and disappeared back
through the parlor, returning almost at once
to place a few bills in his hand. She wished
to ask him where he would go, to ask him
where he was going the morning he passed
the farm and had stopped to inquire for work,
but she felt a reluctance to ask what he
had not volunteered himself, and she said,
"I am grateful to you for all you have done."
He nodded and thought once again of how
he had seen her that day alone in the field,
doggedly heaving bales on a wagon,
and he asked of her, "How long can it be,
with your husband dead and two hundred acres
of corn coming on— how long can you last,
a woman alone on so large a farm?"
"For as long as Heaven intends," she replied,
and he nodded once more and, squarely placing
his hat on his head, made ready to leave.
"Must you go just yet?" she asked him softly,
"I have put on a pot of coffee."  He turned
and seemed for a moment to study her,
then once again took his hat in his hand.
"You can sit on the swing," she motioned, stepping
back through the door. "I won't be a minute,"
but when she returned with two steaming cups,
she found him sitting instead on the rail
with his back to the post.  She smiled and said,
"Do you dislike comfort, Mr McCann?"
He seemed to be gazing at something out
in the dark of the night.  "I am fine," he said.
She held out a brimming cup.  "It is strong
and scalding," she warned, "and probably bitter."
He took it with what she thought was a smile,
the merest trace of a smile, and eased
a savoring sip.  She moved to the swing
and sat on it lightly, holding her cup,
and he saw how the simple hem of her skirt
swirled once at her ankles and then was still.
From somewhere out of the darkness there came,
from a distant pasture, the melancholy
lowing of a bull— and she knew, however
long before daylight she might walk out
to offer him coffee or food for the road,
she would find him gone and, struck by the thought,
she asked of him quickly, "Where will you go?"
"West, I suppose," was all that he said.
"Have you no family?"  There, it was out.
"None that would have me around," he replied,
and she knew by the way that he turned to look
at nothing at all, at the empty night,
she had asked too much, and she feared that he
would rise to his feet and bid her good night,
but he kept his place and, to her surprise,
looked back at her gently.  And what she said next,
what she found herself saying, was nothing that she
had so much as thought: "I would like you to stay,"
and she almost gasped to hear herself say it.

She thought that she heard him sigh as he said,
"It wouldn't work out."  "I could pay you more,"
she countered at once, with a sinking sense,
but he shook his head firmly.  "It's not the pay."
"Well, what is it then?" and she heard in her voice
a tremor of pleading and hated the sound.
"I am sorry," she said.  "I have no right to ask."
He sought for some word to reassure her,
this woman with whom he had felt more at peace
than with any woman that he had known,
but the distance between what he felt somewhere
in the depth of himself and the words he would need
to tell of it here in this woman's presence,
was a distance that he could not hope to bridge,
and so he said nothing.  Beneath the porch,
a cricket began to chirr and they both
gave all their attention to it, keeping
their thoughts at bay.

                                        It wasn't that she,
now that the haying was done, couldn't find
and hire some capable hand— it wasn't
a matter of labor or need— it was more,
more than she knew how to say, and more
than the circumstance that had led him here
and just as surely would lead him away,
would ever permit.

                                   With his coffee gone,
he started to rise, so she left the swing
and stepped up before him, taking the empty
cup from his hand.  He put on his hat
and regarded her for a long moment.
"I'll leave at daybreak."  She nodded, but found
there was nothing to say.  "I have liked it here,"
he said, and started to say something more,
but then merely tipped the brim of his hat
and turned away toward the barn.